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2-1-1998 Susan Becker, piano Department of Music, University of Richmond

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Recommended Citation Department of Music, University of Richmond, "Susan Becker, piano" (1998). Music Department Concert Programs. 690. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/all-music-programs/690

This Program is brought to you for free and open access by the Music at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Music Department Concert Programs by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND DEPARTMENT OF Music • • •

Susan Becker, piano

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FEBRUARY 1, 1998, 3 PM CAMP CONCERT HALL BooKER HALL oF Music GEORGE M. MODLIN CENTER FOR THE ARTS SUSAN BECKER

Born and raised in Iowa, Susan Becker music. She has participated in numerous began musical studies on violin at age 3 music festivals, many involving the and piano at age 7. She holds degrees world premieres or recordings of in piano performance from Oberlin contemporary works. She has coached Conservatory, Indiana University, and compositions with George Crumb, the University of Minnesota, as well as Shulamit Ran, and Oswaldo Golijov a degree in East Asian Studies from among others. Her commitment to new Oberlin College. Her principal teachers music is an ongoing focus of her career, have included Robert Shannon, Edward represented by recent appearances with Auer, Margo Garrett, and Lydia the Minnesota Contemporary Ensemble, Artymiw. She has performed the American Composers' Forum, and throughout the country as a soloist and CURRENTS. She is currently Visiting chamber musician, and in addition to Assistant Professor of Piano at the standard repertoire, she is also devoted University of Richmond. to the performance of contemporary

YOU ARE INVITED TO A RECEPTION IN BOOKER HALL LOUNGE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THIS AFTERNOON'S CONCERT PROGRAM

Variations Serieuses, Op. 54 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-184 7)

Partita #4 in D Major, BWV 828 J. S. Bach Ouverture (1685-1750) Air Menuet

INTERMISSION

Images, Book 2 Claude Debussy Cloches a travers les feuilles (1862-1918) Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut Poissons d'or

Rain Tree Sketch II Toru Takemitsu (in memoriam Olivier Messiaen) (1930-1996)

from Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39 Sergei Rachmaninoff #8 inD Minor (1873-1943) #9 in D Major PROGRAM NOTES

After I chose the works for this recital, I keyboard dance suite. The D major became fascinated by how each one partita reflects the French style of controls the flow or time. The keyboard suites, with its subtle rhythmic Mendelssohn Serious Variations, written shifts and elaborate ornamentation. in 1841, reveal the extent to which he Each partita has a distinctive opening loved the even, regulated, highly ordered movement, and this partita opens with a structure of Baroque music. (Given that French overture, with its slow, ornate Mendelssohn was passionate about the opening giving way to a faster works of J.S. Bach from early in his life, contrapuntal section that lasts to the end it then seemed natural to place a work of the movement. In the Allemande and of his next to some of Bach's music.) Sarabande, Bach takes control of These are, however, character variations ornamentation, leaving very little to in the Romantic spirit. The theme is a chance and writing out two extremely chorale in the solemn key of D minor, ornate slow dances which float and and except for one Adagio variation in pirouette above a constant anchoring D major, he does not stray from the bassline. The Allemande is one of the home key. The theme is a kind of most profound movements Bach wrote processional with some surprising for keyboard. The Courante is an harmonies which Mendelssohn uses to exercise in rhythmic subtlety-the wonderful effect in the 17 variations and undercurrent of this dance constantly passionate coda. Within the architecture shifts from groups of three beats to of the set of variations, Mendelssohn groups of two beats. Its lively character builds several times from slow contrasts well with the depth of the variations through faster and more Allemande. After this comes a so-called virtuosic ones, exploring every possible "galanterie," or optional dance, added texture and "orchestration" for the for special character. The Air has a piano. Lyrical variations alternate with flirtatious character that invites lots of strictly contrapuntal ones (Var. 10 ornamentation. After the Sarabande's is a miniature fugue) but the basic thoughtfulness, Bach closes the partita structure of the theme is never altered with a pair of dances: the Menuet and until the coda sweeps it away, bringing Gigue. The Menuet is in a moderate the piece to a powerful close. tempo and invites ornamentation; the Gigue is exciting and closes the suite Bach published 6 keyboard partitas as with boundless energy. Each dance his Op. 1, calling them Book 1 of his obeys strict rules of structure, and within Clavier-Ubung ("practices," or each the basic pulse of time is never lost. "exercises"). The D major partita is the Mastery over the marking of time is at fourth of the group. Bach published the heart of this elaborate and beautiful these partitas as a sort of compendium set of dances. of all the possible ways to construct a If the first half of the program is about and Debussy gives . the piece a regulated time and counterpoint, the meditative spirit, drawing on the Asian second half is about defying time and sonorities and imagery which he loved about the sheer beauty' of "timeless" so much. The title directs the piece sound. The Debussy hnages, book 2, on a very deep, almost unconscious were written in 1907 and published and level, making it a dreamlike work premiered the following year. Each of intense beauty and stillness. This piece is an evocation of a poetic image. piece is dedicated to Louis Laloy, the The first piece, "Bells through the man whose impression of church bells leaves," reflects Debussy's passion for gave inspiration to the first piece of this Asian musical sonorities-it makes use set. of the whole-tone and pentatonic scales (sounds Debussy loved when he heard The final piece, Goldfish, is of a very the music of the Javanese gamelan). different character. It is flirtatious and These remove the sense of motion light-hearted, and its technical demands toward any one harmony; sounds exist are among the most difficult Debussy for the sake of their own beauty. The ever created. A Japanese lacquer middle section of the piece provides the painting in Debussy's possession of two dramatic climax of the work, building goldfish in a river is often credited for in intensity to rich fortissimo chords, inspiring the piece. It is dedicated to which fade back into the distance as Ricardo Vines, a Spanish pianist who quickly as they appear. It has been said debuted many of the greatest solo piano that Debussy's friend Louis Laloy (a works of Debussy, Ravel, Albeniz, and scholar of non-Western music and their contemporaries. The rippling runs Debussy's biographer) also contributed and trills and tremolos in this work to the spirit of the piece in the form of a evoke the flow of water and the letter: he wrote of being in a small town effortless motion of the fish as they in the French countryside on All Saints' occasionally swim or hover in the reeds. Day and how beautiful it was to be in It is a visual and sensual fantasy-piece; the midst of all the church bells ringing it is capricious and adventurous, running out from every corner of the town. This forward and stopping short, playfully atmosphere is captured beautifully by full of life and dodging any concern Debussy, and the combination of this about the passage of time. imagined sound and the ethereal sounds of "Asian" modes creates a lush and I chose this brief Takemitsu piece beautiful work. for several reasons: it is a meditative, very spiritual piece; it is an homage The second piece in the set ("And the to Messiaen, a compositional mentor moon sets on the temple that was") is to Takemitsu (and a favorite composer very much like the first in its nature: it of mine as well); it experiments with seems to drift free of the ticking flow of the perception of time and of sound and time. The title is quite poetic in itself, silence at the boundary where they meet; and I find it to be a work of extreme were quickly engulfing the country. beauty in its calm, introspective, and (Except for the Corelli Variations, op. peaceful nature. Takemitsu was 42, written 15 years later, these pieces introduced to Messiaen's music by a also represent the last significant works friend in 1950, and for the rest of his he wrote for solo piano.) They are pieces life he felt strong ties to the spirit of all about huge gestures, hyper­ Messiaen's music and, at a deeper level, Romanticism, and the freedom of to Debussy's works also. rubato, pushing and pulling at bits of time all through every phrase of every On hearing of Messiaen's death in 1992, piece. Takemitsu chose to write a short work in homage to the spirit of the man and Etude #8 is an evasive, almost his music. (The title is drawn from a nonmelodic piece, drifting through short story by his close friend, Japanese changing textures, flexible tempos, author Kenzaburo Oe.) It is a study of and lush harmonies. Threads of melody stillness, of the initiation and decay of appear and disappear back into the sound, and escaping any awareness of flowing texture, creating a watery, the passage of time. It is written in color-driven etude whose focus is its several sections of various tempos, mood rather than thematic development. centering around a rising three-note cell The unpredictable nature of flickering which appears several times in several emotions give the piece a sense of forms throughout the work. The gentle constant flux. dissonances and sense of quiet meditation seem to stop time as each Etude #9 is subtitled "Tempo di Marcia." sound is allowed to speak and die This piece, however, does all in its away. power to avoid the regular rhythms of a typical march-it constantly changes The nine Etudes-Tableaux of op. 39 are meter, from the chiming chords at the from the years 1916-1917; they are opening to the rousing end. Rachmaninoff at his best. All nine Rachmaninoff also shifts accents off the etudes are intensely colorful and strong beats of the measures, imaginative, more hinting at moods than syncopating patterns over and over until portraying any specific image. These any sense of regular marching time is etudes, along with his set of songs, op. lost completely. Its breathless ending 38, were the last substantial pieces he provides a powerful, exciting, and composed before leaving Russia to defiant close to the entire set of etudes. escape the war and political chaos which